‘Are you pleased that your personal doctrine has expressed itself in others to the point of insulting God, and almost daring Him to send one to hell?’
i’ll answer your rhetoric, though it seems you’re looking more for a fight than a discussion.
his post has nothing to do with what i posted. it wasn’t even in response to what i posted.
however, upon further research, i’ve found:
‘From the moment, however, that anti-Origenism prevailed, the doctrine of the
apokatastasis was definitely abandoned. St. Augustine protests more strongly than any other writer against an error so contrary to the doctrine of the necessity of grace. See, especially, his “De gestis Pelagii”, I: “In Origene dignissime detestatur Ecclesia, quod et iam illi quos Dominus dicit æterno supplicio puniendos, et ipse diabolus et angeli eius, post tempus licet prolixum purgati liberabuntur a poenis, et sanctis cum Deo regnantibus societate beatitudinis adhærebunt.” Augustine here alludes to the sentence pronounced against
Pelagius by the Council of Diospolis, in 415 (P.L., XLIV, col. 325). He moreover recurs to the subject in many passages of his writings, and in Book XXI “De Civitate Dei” sets himself earnestly to prove the eternity of punishment as against the Platonist and Origenist error concerning its intrinsically
purgatorial character. We note, further, that the doctrine of the
apokatastasis was held in the East, not only by
St. Gregory of Nyssa, but also by
St. Gregory of Nazianzus as well; “De seipso”, 566 (P.G., XXXVII, col. 1010), but the latter, though he asks the question, finally decides neither for nor against it, but rather leaves the answer to
God. Köstlin, in the “Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie” (Leipzig, 1896), I, 617, art. “Apokatastasis”, names Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia as having also held the doctrine of
apokatastasis, but cites no passage in support of his statement. In any case, the doctrine was formally condemned in the first of the famous
anathemas pronounced at the Council of Constantinople in 543:
Ei tis ten teratode apokatastasis presbeuei anathema esto [See, also, Justinian, Liber adversus Originem, anathemas 7 and 9.] The doctrine was thenceforth looked on as heterodox by the Church.’
while my view is not strictly apokatastasis, as my view sees the lake of fire as eternal, and hades as non-eternal, my view is close enough to a view looked on as heterodox by the church that i’ll withdraw my presentation of this view from the forum.
for the sake of clarity, i hereby renounce my previous statements regarding hell, and merely express that hell is real, anyone who is not redeemed will go there, and the church teaches that it is reasonable to expect that hell will be greatly populated by damned souls.
i’m sorry for any confusion i’ve caused.
